


Sap

by Aicosu



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: ABO Fic, ABO dynamics, Alpha Arthur, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Awkward Sexual Situations, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega John, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:35:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23868382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aicosu/pseuds/Aicosu
Summary: Arthur takes John on a mission to rob a wagon and an accident changes their relationship.
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	Sap

It happens like sap from a cut tree. 

Nothing at first, then all at once. 

Then slowly. 

He could almost smell it between the heady waft of salt and spit. 

Sap. 

He tastes it through the grooves of his teeth, through the soft hoarseness of John’s breath in his ear as he holds on. Jaw locked. Tongue flat. 

“Uhn. Ah—” John wheezes, boots skidding slow but harshly beneath them. They knock into his knees, flip over his hat where it had fallen. When he’d lunged. When he’d put his hands on John and took them to the dirt. “—rrthur.”

Shaky, long fingers press at his cheek, searching wildly for his lips, peel to press more salt against his teeth. They pull. Pry.

“Arthur,” John says again. Whispers.

He feels his name in the bob of John’s neck more than he hears it. 

“S-stop.” 

The reverb of the word slides through skin and vibrates his teeth. Arthur swallows it whole. It makes him thrum. Shake. Makes his fingers curl tighter in John’s hair. On his wrist. 

It wasn’t the first bite. 

* * *

There wasn't supposed to be any. 

John wasn’t supposed to be… 

They weren’t supposed to even be going together. Or going at all. 

The job had landed on them because Micah had volunteered himself and John, which he’d argued against, until Dutch had commanded Arthur and John instead, in his infinite wisdom. 

Maybe that was for the best, it was a wagon robbery after all, and experience thus far made anyone else a bad choice. Especially Micah. 

But neither of them had liked the smell of it. 

Especially John. 

“A fuckin’ wagon!” 

The tin cup of coffee clanged against the side of the caravan before thudding to the grass. 

Arthur wiped droplets from his arm.

John was already up from the table, dragging his hat up from his knee and cussing. 

“Like we need a fucking wagon, didn’t we just fucking get here?” His arm waved up in a listless gesture around him. Arthur wasn’t sure if he meant the sunken mansion that was Shady Belle, or the small camp they’d come back to after the trip up the Heartlands for hunting. Maybe both. 

“It shouldn’t take too long.” Arthur tried. 

“Everything takes too goddamn long these days.” 

He followed John towards the house, noting the stiffness in his shoulders and feeling a little guilty on it. If he’d kept his mouth shut, maybe it would have worked out. Maybe Micah would have saddled up with John and not returned save for some telltale blood on John’s gun. 

“I’d rather be the one taking you up North than see you go by yourself.”

Somehow it’s the wrong thing to say.

John gets one boot on the porch before turning back, glaring something hot and vile in his eyes. Or maybe it’s the noon sun slicing beneath his hat, making brown look gold. Either way, it’s jarring. 

“You’re still on about that shit?” Teeth flash before John just shakes his head, eyes closing as if in a longed-for relief. “Give it up, Arthur, please,” 

“John—”

“I’m actually _asking_ you now, give it a rest will you? _Please_.” 

It’s then that he realizes John thinks he means North. Alone. Like the damn year they couldn’t seem to agree on. But it’s not. 

“It ain’t like that.” He hurries. 

But John’s not listening. 

His elbow’s gone out to the porch veranda, fingers listless as his forehead shoves pointedly onto his wrist. His hat slides up and Arthur spots sweat trickle down his temple. Past the curl on his head. Past his still-closed eyes. Past his cheek. Past his lips. Slow and weighted. 

Like sap. 

And then all at once it runs, fast and gone, spattered in the sunlight. 

“It’s cooler up North.” He finds himself saying. 

John says nothing. Breathing, chest lifting through his shirt and his vest and his jacket and… 

“You're too dressed anyway Marston, ain’t you sweatin'?” His throat is tight when he asks, but he tries to keep himself at ease, even leaning in to push at the man’s shoulder. 

The touch is light, but John _gives_ like it isn’t. 

John just hums. Low and uneven. “...ain’t getting bit.”

“Bit?” He repeats. 

John opens his eyes then, rolling his head on his hand to look up at Arthur. He looks drunk. Drugged maybe. But he doesn’t explain. 

“Too hot for even the mosquitoes these days, boy.” He reassures. 

John just stares. Stares like he’s waiting for something. An apology maybe. Arthur swallows with a tingle of shame. 

John’s eyes flicker down and up again. And then higher. 

And then John yells, pulling from the porch completely. 

“I’m leaving!”

It takes a second before Arthur catches up, turning to see Abigail crossing the grass towards them.

“Excuse me?” She yells back. 

“Great.” John hisses behind him.

Arthur tries not to listen to their argument, he really does. 

But it’s a difficult task as he and John carry saddles and bedrolls out to their horses and Abigail trails them the entire time. 

And it’s also difficult when it seems a little different. Not so much an argument as it is Abigail looking worriedly here and there and making excuses. Like she’s doting on Jack when he’s ill rather than harking at John when he’s stupid. 

“It ain’t good for you to be goin’ anywhere you know that. You only just got back with Charles. You’re gonna run ragged.” 

“Don’t I know it,” John answers, tossing the belt of his saddle over his horse without even looking at her. He huffs as he does so, like the packing alone has already winded him. Even his rebuttals are soft and half-hearted. 

He looks tired.

Arthur leans back from his own horse to pull on John’s straps, finding the other side to buckle it for him. John catches his eye and says nothing, just lets him, which is more telling than it should be. 

“It ain’t a good idea,” Abigail says quietly. Arthur pretends not to notice her look at him specifically. Pretends not to feel worse about it all when even Abigail seems to consider him a threat too. 

“What do you want from me? I agree with you.”

“Tell Dutch you can’t be out, or I will myself and tear him a new—”

“Abigail, please.” His hands fall to her shoulders. “ _Please_.” 

It’s the second time he hears the word like that. Sore. Thinned. Paired with an exhale that sounds almost too private a tone to be listening too. 

Arthur pulls his hat over his eyes and mounts, looking anywhere but at them. Anywhere but at John.

Gotta be the heat.

It was just too hot.

Too damn hot. 

* * *

The wind from a hard ride does nothing for the sweltering heat or the humidity. 

In fact, the cool air hitting his wet skin makes him feel shivery. Feverish in the oppressive weight of the warm around them. 

He guesses the same of John when they finally slow down, trotting unevenly to each other. 

John falls a little to the right, the reins in his fingers loose and tentative, his horse seemingly none too happy with the inconsistent control. 

“Whoa, now,” Arthur leans back to pat Old Boy, rearing his own mare to a quieter pace. 

Again, John just lets Arthur help, too busy dragging his hat off his head to lean his hair into the air and close his eyes. 

He looks soaked. 

The collar around his neck is dark, and his skin is shiny. Red. 

Arthur smells campfire and cedar in the air, a sizzling that rolls through him in a wave that settles at the base of his stomach. 

“You burn something?” He actually asks. 

“What?” John’s hands fall to his saddle. He doesn’t look up. 

Arthur stares at the long ends of John’s wet hair, bouncing peppered touches about his cheeks as they ride. He shakes his head even though he still smells fire. 

“Nothin’.” 

“Where is this fuckin’ job?”

“Osman groves.” 

“Roanoke? Are you shittin’ me?” 

Arthur huffs. He wishes he was. 

“Dutch got any idea how long it’s gonna take to do this?”

“Wagon comes in tomorrow.”

“Fuck this.” 

He’s gotta agree. Still, he hasn’t heard John cuss so much since before Blackwater. Especially recently. Since getting Jack back and moving, after all that nonsense with the Pinkertons… John had been quieter. Reserved. 

He moved about camp more a somber spot of silence than anything moody. And if Arthur were honest he’d admit that it had been true since he’d been back from his time away alone. He’d… grown. Somehow. 

But now…

Arthur tried to peer at him as unsuspicious-like as he could manage but ended up having to do a surprised stare when he found him laid fully back on his horse, head to haunches and jacket splayed.

He jolted, before straightening, catching John’s eyes open and relaxed, looking up at the sky. Awake. Not fainted.

He turned away quickly. 

It wasn’t something he’d seen John do since he was a teenager. A kid, even. And as a man, long-legged and strewn out, it looked strange to see. 

He shifted in his saddle, trying to turn sideways. Away. Something more comfortable. 

He wanted to ask him if he was alright. If he was well. Because it was obvious something was wrong. Off. Something that left a strange taste in his mouth. But he wasn’t sure what words to use that wouldn’t set John into some mood. Some anger. Or whatever it was that made him talk like that. 

_Please._

“It’s a goddamn warm summer.” He said instead, hacking a cough right after. He waved an arm out past the roads. “Sap to syrup before it hits the ground.” 

John didn’t answer. 

It was a long enough stretch that Arthur turned to look at him. 

He found John’s eyes immediately, his head having fallen to the side to stare back at Arthur from where he lay. His body swayed with the slow motion of his horse. Muscles moving him like John was just a blanket. A spilled mess of a man. Like he’d been poured out. 

“What?” John asked quietly. 

“I said it’s hot.” He reiterated, gloves tightening around the reins of his mare as he watched John ignore the soft shake of his own body. 

“Sap?” 

“Oh,” Arthur hitched his voice. “Sap.” He nodded. “You know. To make maple syrup. For bread and biscuits.” 

John lifts his chin. 

And then Arthur really did feel like he was a young man again, brows furrowing to explain something to his younger brother he barely understood himself. “It’s… they put them spigots in trees and collect the water from ‘em. Make it hot enough and it gets sticky.”

“Ain’t it sugar?”

“I think there’s sugar in it. Yeah.” Arthur smiles a little. 

John looks away.

They’re quite a while as they pass foliage. Shade splices sunlight from tree leaves. He assumes they’re done talking. 

“Any tree?” John’s voice is low. 

He thinks a bit, trying to remember what he’d read about it. Some newspaper story about it way back when. “I think so, I don’t know.” 

“I don’t think it is.” He says suddenly. 

Arthur looks back at him again.

John’s eyes look gold once more as the sunlight bleeds through the trees and hits his gaze. Gold and wet. 

“I think it’s the ones that smell like it.” 

Arthur doesn’t argue with that.

* * *

He doesn’t want to argue with him. 

Even if he still feels John’s eyes on him the rest of the day. 

It’s not exactly a bother, it’s just not… what he’s used to. 

He and John had been more cordial as of late, but still a little strained. A year wasn’t so long, and yet it had been. John was a father in his mind now, not just by circumstance and Arthur felt his priorities closer to camp than they ever had been before. 

But recently it was like they were meeting again for the first time and seemed to like who the other was. 

Not that Arthur still didn’t see the scrawny thing he remembered from the younger days. 

Especially like that. 

“Goddammit.” 

Arthur looked up from the ground he was clearing for a fire, just in time to catch John’s spur hook his stirrup as he dismounted.  
  
“Careful, now—”  
  
“This whole fucking job is stupid, you know that? I swear the next goddamn time —”  
  
“John,” Arthur warned again, standing and heading over as John continued to yanked his knee back, yanking at the stuck shoe. Old Boy reared his head in irritation. 

“—he asks as if this is part of some genius idea, as if this goddamn money is going to fix—”

John pulls back too harshly and Old Boy jolts forward, his foot goes up and his hips go down. Everything goes down. A heady thud, a crack of leaves, and the horse shakes its head in distaste.  
  
“John!” Arthur’s already there, strides meeting where the man now lays. It’s hard for him to decide between concern and the sudden, itchy, contagious mirth filling him up until he’s laughing, grasping at the saddle to keep him steady.  
  
He can’t even look at him.  
  
“Fuck, Arthur, really,” John’s murmuring somewhere on the ground. 

“I promise Martson, I ain’t—I ain’t laughing _at_ you.” It’s hard to breathe through his chuckling but he manages, wiping his eyes and looking up at the trees. “I’m laughing _above_ you.” 

His own joke just makes him laugh more. 

But John doesn’t answer. Doesn’t retort. 

Arthur exhales in a low whistle that dies as soon as he looks down. 

He’s a mess. 

John.

He’s poured out again. Spilled. Leaking. Literally even —his eyes closed, sweat-slicked, and skin flushed. He looks sick. Looks pained. Looks worn down to the core of what makes him, _him._

Arthur’s fingers grasp at his mouth and chin to hide the expression he might make, whatever that is. Or to stop from laughing maybe, from gasping. He’s not sure what his reaction is but his tongue feels wet. 

It’s quiet save for the consistent and heavy sound of John panting. 

“Let’s get you up,” Arthur says softly, more to get himself moving then to reassure anyone.

His arms slip beneath John’s shoulders to pull him up. 

Once again John’s eyes flutter open and his brow glares, but he doesn’t resist. Doesn’t argue the help. He just stares, waiting. 

Arthur gets him to his feet easier than he should be able to. There’s just nothing to him. He’s light.

Nothing but wet. 

Arthur’s fingers curl around the lapels of John’s jacket and feels it even; wet. Droplets of sweat like sparkling sugar dust his clothes, shaken from his skin and hair. It smells like that too. Sugar. That heady smell of burning fills his nostrils but this time tinged with a sweetness that soaks his cheeks.  
  
It smells wrong but familiar. 

Like a…

“You alright, then?” Arthur coughs. 

John leans heavily against Arthur’s knuckles, eyes darting around.  
  
“Where’s my hat?”  
  
“You alright?” He repeats and pulls a little at the jacket to get John’s attention.  
  
“I’m fine.”  
  
“You’re actin’ drunk.”  
  
“Sure,” John’s hands have found Arthur’s grip, and push with a strength that’s just not there.  
  
“You’re sweatin’,” He points out, and shucks one shoulder of John’s jacket. “You wearing all this and you gonna fall over like a lady in a bustle ‘n corset on a July afternoon—”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
The word is sharp, louder than the others. Arthur stops.

John’s whole body moves up and down with his breath but his eyes are steady. 

Arthur’s not sure he’s seen him like this before, but he can’t look away and something in him makes him pull the jacket again. Rough. 

“Don’t what?”  
  
John’s body sways with the motion. His expression changes completely, eyes going lazy-lidded once more. Chin raising. Expectant or resigned. Maybe really just dazed.  
  
His hands fall to his sides. 

“Nothin’.”

Arthur takes the jacket off altogether. 

John makes a noise when it’s gone, a shaky thing that has his hands gripping nothing but air.  
  
“You’re sick.”  
  
“I’m not.” He argues. Barely.

“You’re soaked through your shirt, you can’t breathe right, and I haven’t heard you complain this much since them wolves made claim on the acres of your face.” Arthur pointed out, tossing the jacket towards the beginnings of their camp.  
  
“Sure.” John just says, shivering, looking like he was 16 again, fists curling towards his back and looking ready to cry or to throw a punch. 

“See? That ain’t like you.” Arthur circled around him once more, hand extending to his shoulder. John glanced at it quickly and back up, once more expectant. Did he think he was gonna get hit? “Where’s all that bark Marston? That bite?”  
  
John’s body stiffened. Eyes darted away and back again like he was lying even though he’d said nothing. Like he’d stolen. It was so much like when they were kids, boys; rowdy and unkind to each other one second and trusted brothers the next; that Arthur slipped right into it. 

“What’s goin’ on?” He drew close, hand grabbing rough-but-familiar at John’s tresses, rubbing his head and smiling at him, “Ya ain’t in trouble with anyone but me, Johnny boy,” 

John’s eyes went lidded at the gesture, body tensing and melting up to Arthur’s knuckles, exhaling long and hard and shaky.

It hit him then. That scent. That strong campfire burn of sticky, sweet, sap.

_Heat._

It drizzled down the back of Arthur’s throat to his hips. Shot through and spiked up, his muscles contracted and his pants went tight. 

He pulled away fast. 

Heat!  
  
No doubt. 

But—  
  
“What?” John asked, eyes open again, this time looking more knowing than tired, even standing there with his head back and his body slack.

“Nothin’,” Arthur said fast.   
  
“Nothin’,” John repeated slowly. “Right.”

* * *

Right. 

It was nothing. Nothing at all. 

John just reeked of a woman’s Heat. 

Arthur’s face was hotter than ever. Red and sweating from the fire he was sparking in his hands and the humiliation in his head.  
  
It was a failing effort to ignore it all. Ignore the man’s behavior, his smell, his—

“Ain’t even gonna need it.” John murmured across from him. “It’s so hot already.”  
  
Arthur didn’t look up. He didn’t need to see John’s face to know what his expression was. Or that he wasn’t doing much better. They’d set up camp without so much as a word to one another, hitching tents and horses and gathering wood and stones for their fire.  
  
It had been silent but Arthur’s mind hadn’t been. 

It could be a lot of reasons—well, no, no, it could only be one reason. _Should_ be only one.  
  
Abigail.  
  
It obviously made the most sense. It was simple.  
  
Abigail was, well, she was—probably cycling through that _delicate_ time, and her scent had, naturally, plastered itself on her husband, her _mate,_ as it’s want to do during their… _fixin'_ of the issue. 

But Arthur couldn’t help the little thoughts that plagued that theory. 

  
He’d smelled Abigail before. 

It was hard but undeniable to admit. He’d gotten a shiver of it taking Jack from her arms when she’d asked for a rest once, smelled her sweet sweat when she’d fanned herself after carrying him all day. Not to mention the nights when she was younger, before her and Marston had paired together; when she’d worked. _Worked._ Had even smelled what she trailed behind when she offered her services in his own ruts and—

It was different. It wasn’t like this. 

Which could only mean—

Unanswered, John huffed, stretching his legs out and falling to his elbows. “Ain’t even got anything to cook.”

"Will you stop fuckin' whinin'!?" 

—it was another woman's. 

John's face went as red as Arthur's, a rare thing, turning away with discomfort and embarrassment instead of his usual retorts. 

But he couldn't appreciate it.

Marston wouldn't… fool around on Abigail, would he? 

But he had been sparse recently. And with the snow, and that damn year, and the boy… maybe… 

It was just _so strong_. That stench was unmistakable. A rancid sort of desire. Desperate. Like something in the back alley of a saloon. 

Distracting. 

Arthur swallowed, shifting on his knees when his hips and stomach ache into his belt. Hips tight and pants pinched.

Damn John. Messin' with some whore and bringing that stench around him too. It was dirty. 

"S-Sorry." 

He looked up. 

John's eyes flickered away, hands dropping to his lap and shoulders rising. Another gesture he'd not seen of John since he'd been a teenager. "Arthur. I… just—it's hot and this—Dutch is—"

"It's fine." He hurried, not liking the sound of John’s voice laden with worry or guilt. 

No, it had to be Abigail. Likely. Probably. 

It would make sense why she'd been fluttering about John when they'd left. And why he was a sopping mess. Arthur eyed John and the sheen of sweat across his neck, hidden in the folds of his open shirt. 

He'd pulled the man away during an unfinished rut. 

Arthur’s ears burned. Great. Embarrassed for more reasons. He blames it on the flames engulfing the wood as he finally gets it started. 

Why didn’t he just say so?

“Say what?”

Arthur snaps his head up. 

John’s eyes are leveled at him. A drip of sweat drops from his brow to the dirt. 

“Uh, I, you—” He hadn’t realized he’d asked. Out loud. “Why—” Then he laughs, nerves tickling through his chest, Arthur leans back to stare up at the trees and laugh. “Why didn’t you just say Abigail was in heat an’—”

He’s not looking at him, but he hears John’s inhale stop.  
  
“—you was busy with her.”

John says nothing. 

Arthur laughs again, this time a bit uncontrollably. The back of his neck is hot.   
  
“Come on now, it’s not so bad, not a secret —” He fumbles. “You can say so, especially with you ruttin’ ah,” He coughs, finally looking back to stare at John, who doesn’t move across the flames. They’re both sweating. “—ruttin’ up a storm, I get it. We all get it. It happens. All the time.” He smiles too big. Goofy. Drops fall from his chin.

“Goin’ to bed.” John stands fast and Arthur can’t see anything in his expression as he walks away. 

“Marston! Come on now, I was just tryin’ to be—”  
  
But John ducks low in the tent and disappears, leaving Arthur to huff with fallen shoulders.   
  
Maybe that had been too straight forward. Or crass. Talking about his wife’s breedin’ like that.

Arthur scratches his arm and neck. Embarrassed.  
  
Or maybe John really was messin’ around with someone and he’d caught it.  
  
Arthur scratches his beard this time and hums. Upset.  
  
At least he’d taken that damn stench away. 

* * *

Short-lived as that was. 

Arthur turned over once more, thumbs rolling over his temples, throat tight, as he held his breath. 

It was so damn strong. 

Arthur’s hand frisked blindly above him, snatching his hat to pull over his face and inhale the scent of his own hair. But it was nothing compared to that _slick_ , that burned sugar. That syrup. 

He huffed, stifling a groan that nearly merged into John’s own wheeze. 

The man was in rough shape. 

His eyes peeled to stare at the canvas in the dark, feeling his body strain with each rasped exhale John blew out, sounding like the delicate tear of paper. Thin and breakable. Pathetic.  
  
Some rut. 

He sat up, and his muscles screamed, shooting pains into his wrists, his neck, his thighs — _his hips —_ _  
_  
“Damn problems you got, givin’ ‘em to me.”

John slept on through the whispered accusation. 

If he looked spilled that day, he looked flooded now. Floating in the cot, hair curled into droplets of black ink and smoke, a waterlogged painting of a man. Damp and dewed.

John’s brows furrowed with a puckered expression. Like he was being pulled. Pressed. 

It was truly unlike what Arthur had seen, even in his most raucous of haydays, tagging along with Dutch to red light poker rooms where ruttin' men bet on heatin' women. Even then, hiding his face in his neckerchief, watching the ‘ _natural order of things_ ’ as Dutch had explained it, ‘ _an Alpha’s education_ ’ — even with his own sad experiences, he’d never seen any man have it as bad as John.   
  
Arthur grabbed his coat and put it on, shoving his hat far down his face as he stood and pulled on his boots. 

In fact… He thought, ignoring the heavy weight in his trousers and the sweat damp on the back of his shirt… he’d never really had another man’s… another alpha’s, rut, or their mate’s heat, effect like this. In fact—

In fact, he hadn't even considered… that John… _was?_

Maybe he’d never really concerned himself with it. Or noticed. Maybe he’d just assumed. 

His memories stalked him in a rush. Memories of John arguing with him when they were younger, tagging along for every errand, foolish and loud and angry, eager to prove and eager to displease. 

But Dutch, not him, had been in charge of that… area of expertise. And to some degree so had Hosea. Who’d explained sort of, once, on some trip when it had just been the two of them and Arthur had complained about finding lizards in his boots that John was, ‘ _a late bloomer with no answers_.’ Whatever that had meant.  
  
After that, the only thing Arthur could recall was John’s consistent presence at the edges of the girl’s tent, night after night, cigarette after cigarette. Trading the shadow of Arthur with the shadow of Abigail Roberts. He’d smelled sex on John a few times with a frustrated roll of his eyes, but not with any surprise.  
  
The two had fallen in fast. Arthur had always… perhaps subconsciously assumed that had been that. He’d rutted with her, bit her, bred her. Or maybe… bit then bred — whatever came first; Abigail wasn’t a working girl after that and most of the men were still sore about John breaking the unspoken rules not to ‘not _claim_ the _camp property_.’

“It’s the same as anything else in the ledger,” Dutch had said once, pointing thick fingers at nothing as he and Hosea listened. “We need to make sure all our _top dogs_ are well cared for. Last time the twins went two ruts without mates and we had to bury three farmers and a lawman.”  
  
Arthur had understood it. He’d understood it first hand. Staving off all he knew he needed when he’d met Mary.   
  
He couldn’t.   
  
He'd been ornery fast. Bar fights and dueling had been abundant, to say the least. And after she left to the winds he'd spent a whole week in a paid-for room with paid-for _care_.

But the Calendar’s boys were dead now. There were more folk-type campers in the gang than _‘top dogs,’_ now. Dutch had Molly… and Susan, actually. Sean had Karen, Micah had who-truly-cares, and Arthur… got by. When he needed to. In town. On limited occasion. 

And John had Abigail. 

Right.

...right?  
  
He’s standing there now, staring down at John’s lanky body, wheezing through a longing Arthur knew too well but also not at all. 

“Damn you, Marston.” he curses one last time and leaves for fresh air. 

* * *

He finds a creek too. Tiny thing, far off from the branch of the river it stems from. But he’s thankful for it. 

He pools his hands in the basin of rocks, waiting a while before getting it full enough to splash over his face and down his neck. The cold water does little to the rising heat in his blood. Or the tense cringe of each and every one of his muscles. 

It had been, maybe a year now, since he’d — since. 

_Since._

And a year was a long time. He knew that. He knew he’d suppressed it during then too. On purpose. A dangerous game to be playin’ with his health. With his age. But he considered himself a careful man, if not a good one. 

He’d bitten before. Accidentally. But she had — well. Since then at least. _Since then_ …  
  
He pours another handful of water down his chest. 

But he can smell John—Abigail—whoever, whatever prostitute or mess John had created, all of his skin. Sugary-sweet mingling with cold forest air and the taste of moonlight in his mouth. Between his teeth. Between his fingers. Carding through his hair and shelving between his clothes and skin. 

He thinks to go for a walk, but he only makes it five steps before his hands find a tree. His shoulder follows. 

Arthur feels his body throb. His gums ache. His knees want to bend. To kneel.  
  
Like a deer shot with an arrow, he tries to keep standing. To keep walking. It’s a ridiculously stupid comparison because for a deer it’s their life. And for him, it’s just trouble. _Nature._ Dumb, disgusting nature.  
  
He stares at the water drip from his hair down his nose and spatter to the leaves and dirt below and imagines he must look as wrecked as John did. 

Splayed. Poured. Dripping.  
  
He tried to shake his head, cough, wake himself up, but instead, he just grunts and shucks his shoulders. Hands flexing. It feels good. 

If Marston just — took care of things, you know, the old fashioned way. He thinks, fingers already pulling at his suspenders till they smack his thighs. If Marston were out here, instead of him. If he was just god damn responsible like he had told him to be.  
  
He was always shouldering shit for him. Since he was young, since back then, since the mountain, since Valentine. Now. Shouldering things without even being asked because he didn’t need to be. 

Those eyes flashed in his mind as his fingers pulled at his waistband. The same eyes John had given him at camp. On the horse. Back on the porch.  
  
Waiting.  
  
Expectin’. 

Like John knew Arthur would always, inevitably, take care of anything without even being told. Because of course, he would. Dammit. Or course—

He would—

Chill hits his skin at his hips and thighs and he doesn’t notice 'cause he’s too hot. And his fingers are too wet from the creek and sweat as they wrap around his dick that any other sensation is gone.  
  
He’s not even sure what he’s thinking anymore. It makes no goddamn sense.  
  
“Take care—” He gruffs, shoulders pressing at the tree’s edge and boots sliding in the dirt as his fingers squeeze down the length of his shaft and his stomach coils.  
  
Take care of it. Of him. Of everything. Of this.  
  
Picking him up from falling, Arthur imagines John like he was then, melting through his fingers stinking of sex. He imagines John in that tent, fingers splayed on the cot, holding on as a rut rocks him. He imagines John doing as he is now. Taking care of it. Curled up with that whispery, fog-think wheeze, like cigarette smoke that was more night air vapor than tobacco.  
  
“Shit!” he curses, because he imagines lips like that. Pursed. Ready. And everything is vague. He thinks of John slinking to the back door of some boudoir, of fucking some girl against a wall, imagines the sound of John’s belt buckle clinking with each thrust as his does now while fucking his hand. 

His frustration and confusion spill to his fantasies, sometimes thinking it’s Abigail, of Mr. and Mrs. Marston matin’ in the lamplight of their tent, or himself fucking Abigail, or returning to the present and pushing his arousal by watching the glistening pre-cum pearl off the tip of his cock and drop to the ground.  
  
Like John’s sweat had off his cheek. As Arthur’s had. 

His back hits the trees as he gets faster, freehand pressing harshly at his head where his mind races in deplorable, confusing circles, until all he can focus on is that smell. 

That goddamn, sick, sweet, delicious, and horrible smell. 

Sap. Thick. Heavy.  
  
“Da-mm-”  
  
His hat hits the ground.  
  
His panting was so loud in the night that when he cums and air leaves him, it seems the forest is silent. 

When Arthur breaths again it’s through gritted, angry teeth and a hot glare, looking down at his sticky sap covered fingers and his still-hard dick. 

Ruttin’ officially started. 

"Goddammit." 


End file.
